Leidy Chavez & Fernando Pareja

The installations created by Fernando Pareja and Leidy Chavez, both of whom studied art at the Uni- versity of Cauca in Popayán and who have worked as an artist couple since 2002, are not merely as- tounding moving images, they are also images that are indeed moving.

Small wax figures on rotating disks, stroboscopic lighting, and a haunting soundtrack are the com- ponents of their animation machines, which serve to breathe life into the motionless figures, allowing them to tell their story in continuously repeating sequences. The animation machines are fascinat- ing continuations of historical visual devices and optical toys which enjoyed great popularity in the 19th century. Their artistic research led Fernando Pareja and Leidy Chavez to devices with puzzling names such as the zoetrope and the praxinoscope, pre-cinematic technologies that had already mes- merized the public in their day. Both were exam- ples of simple yet ingenious machines based on physiological and psychological perceptual phe- nomena that evoke the illusion of movement.